


However Much You Feed A Wolf, It Always Looks To The Forest

by bloodbuzzedohio



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Jarvis does things a lot, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-09 22:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodbuzzedohio/pseuds/bloodbuzzedohio
Summary: (Protocol #1: Hydra is law. An Agent, Handler, Supervisor, Manager or Director must always be trusted and treated with respect. The Asset must never question a decision made by an Agent, Handler, Supervisor, Manager or Director and must always follow orders from said personnel, taking hierarchy into consideration.)The Asset ignores Protocol #1 completely.The Asset figuratively throws the Protocol book out the window.





	However Much You Feed A Wolf, It Always Looks To The Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Untitled](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/383372) by Sunrow. 



> Written for the Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018.  
> Art by [Sunrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunrow) who drew something incredible that inspired me from day one.  
> Beta'd by Nikki who shouted at me because she had to fact check so many things and knows nothing about Captain America.  
> My Tumblrs are [here](http://bloodbuzzedohio.tumblr.com/) and [here](https://njosnavelin.tumblr.com/).

Ironic as it is, following protocol is what saves his life.

He leaves the bank vault in a panic, unsure if it’s the right move but he doesn’t have any other ideas, so this will have to do.

(Protocol #52, Amended 1972: In any event that the Asset is separated from its Handler and Operations Team, if the mission has been completed, compromised, or abandoned, the Asset must report to safe housing in closest proximity to intended target location within 24 hours or risk termination. Asset will be provided with access codes to all safe housing units to ensure Protocol #52 can be carried out. Asset must make immediate contact with Operations Manager, Situation Manager or Director to provide its mission report.)

The house is an unsuspecting townhouse on Swann street. He finds it easily. The code is 4472 and has not been changed since the 90’s—an oversight that proves beneficial. If any of the neighbours were to look out their windows, he would look like any other person returning home after a few too many drinks, but no one looks so he slips inside and locks the door behind him.

His movements are slow. He is tired and his shoulder is still dislocated but he has to secure the location; that much is obvious and necessary.

After he sweeps the rooms and determines that the whole house is clear, he locates the control room and disables the cameras and other security measures linking this house to others in its connected system. The keypad for the door will still work but at least now, no one can try to contact this location without him knowing about it.

He ignores the instructions within Protocol #52 that order him to contact a superior; they are all dead by now. The Director is dead. The Asset feels regret at this thought and it rises like bile in his throat. He pushes it down and ignores it.

The next thing he needs to do is fix his shoulder. It takes effort but it is no more than he is used to. He backs himself against a chair and pushes, wincing at the sound it makes. He thinks bitterly that this is not even the worst injury he’s had.

He finds clothes in an upstairs bedroom and lays them out on the bed.

He takes a shower.

 

The water scalds his skin but it is a feeling he has not experienced since Siberia. It is far better than the humiliation of the hose that warned of colder things to come. It is far better with no one standing guard.

He dresses himself and looks for paper.

If he is going to survive, he will need to take inventory.

 

—

 

(Protocol #5, Amended 1983: The Asset must make itself aware of its surroundings to the best of its ability. The Asset must take inventory of supplies before entering the field and must use supplies only when necessary. The Asset must complete its mission with only the necessities.)

The townhouse is mostly bare except for three areas.

The kitchen cupboards are stocked with non-perishable cans and jars. The fridge is empty but there is frozen meat in the freezer which has been placed there recently. This does not alarm him; maintenance has always been thorough but the organization is exposed and agents would not risk coming here unless they had no other option—like him.

The pantry has flour, rice, sugars and oil. There are dried herbs and spices. There are noodles, sauces, pots and pans.

He is getting ahead of himself.

In an area off the main floor, toward a laundry room that has never been used, there is an armory. It is not locked.

The Asset takes inventory more carefully here and adds his own weapons to the list. He hopes he will have no need for these things, but their presence comforts him.

The last area is the most important.

In a bedroom on the second floor, there is everything he will need to disappear.

First, there is money. There is ten thousand dollars in cash—clean cash. Maintenance is tasked with acquiring bills that will not raise flags or be easily tracked. He wonders vaguely about the process but it is unimportant.

The next thing he discovers are the identifications. There are IDs for agents, managers, the Director himself. There are IDs for the Asset, as well.

His name in this house is Aaron Sanders, although in other locations, he has been Ethan Hunt, Max Steinberg, Alex Ellis, Samuel Kent. He is always 30 years old, born on September 3rd in the location of the house. 5’11”, blue eyes, brown hair; a man with perfect vision, an organ donor. His passports are always up to date, his driver’s licenses are always recently renewed, he is always an American citizen. There is always at least one credit card in his name, though he doesn’t immediately trust it.

He signs the passport. Aaron’s handwriting is neat and sleek. His pen smudges a little.

The Asset destroys the other IDs. He has no need for them, and no one else will either.

There are two cell phones in the same vault as the rest of the IDs. He contemplates their existence for a moment and then crushes them both in his left hand. Better safe than sorry.

On the desk in the corner of the room, there is a laptop, which he will need later. There are car keys and spare keys for the house. The Asset keeps those as well.

In the closet of the room, there are other items that are more vital to his survival, but he hesitates. He shudders when he opens the door, though he knows they are necessary.

There is a small fridge containing bags of TPN. The IV tubes are hanging limp on their rack. There are pills and needles: bottled medicine to sedate him, objects to control him.

He closes the closet door and wonders how long he can go without food. He refuses to use the IV on principle but he knows this is a mistake.

He ignores logic and reason for now.

 

He goes to the living room and turns on the TV.

Captain America is all over the news. He has been found and is recovering in a nearby hospital. He is no longer in critical condition. The Asset knows he will be okay. He remembers Captain America being shot before. It was in the shoulder and the wound healed so quickly a man with a mustache called it a miracle. The Asset tries not to think of this memory. It confuses him; he needs his mind to be clear.

The news anchor talks about things he only _just_ understands.

The woman with the red hair leaked secrets onto the internet. The man with the wings is alive. The Director has been confirmed dead and the agent he hated is in custody. There is corruption on all levels of the Government.

Hydra is responsible.

Hydra is evil.

Hydra is gone.

 

(Protocol #1: Hydra is law. An Agent, Handler, Supervisor, Manager or Director must always be trusted and treated with respect. The Asset must never question a decision made by an Agent, Handler, Supervisor, Manager or Director and must always follow orders from said personnel, taking hierarchy into consideration.)

The Asset ignores Protocol #1 completely.

The Asset figuratively throws the Protocol book out the window.

 

The news anchor does not ask or talk about the Asset. He is a middle-aged man with silver hair and a nice suit. He focusses on the crash in the Potomac. He focusses on Captain America. He says it will take weeks to sift through and understand all the information there is now.

The Asset has weeks to spare.

 

—

 

He doesn’t sleep at first. He watches the news until they have exhausted the subject and all the information remains the same.

He opens the laptop and Googles the file that was released.

He starts to read.

Details of classified missions are revealed. Information on Hydra and SHIELD alike. The woman with the red hair has done a considerable amount of damage both against and for the United States. Hydra, it appears, was everywhere.

He reads the files on Nicholas Fury, the man he shot.

He reads the files on Alexander Pierce.

He avoids the files about Captain America and instead reads the list of confirmed Hydra agents. He copies the names into a new file and deletes those who have been killed or died of natural causes and old age. There are still over a dozen the Asset is unsure of.

He keeps that document on the desktop for later.

He deletes as he goes: old missions that have no relevancy, people who are long gone, property that has been sold or destroyed. The files on his own missions are few and far between with very little to connect them. If you aren’t looking, you cannot find a pattern, but sooner or later, someone will connect the dots.

He reads about the horrible things he has done as though reading about someone else.

He doesn’t remember.

He doesn’t want to remember.

He reads until his eyes are heavy and the words blur together. He forces himself to stand up and drink water, splash some on his face and stay awake a little longer.

It doesn’t work.

 

He wakes with a start, reaching for his sidearm, and the clock on the laptop tells him 14 hours have passed.

14 hours.

No one has come.

No one has found him.

No one has claimed him.

He starts to read again, this time opening files on SHIELD.

He keeps a glass of water on the desk beside the computer. He thinks fleetingly of the TPN bags upstairs but pushes the thought out of his mind. He defiantly ignores the grumble in his stomach and the empty feeling it brings. The water will do.

A photo of Margaret Carter makes him uneasy and he skips her file altogether.

The information on Howard Stark brings about a different feeling. He recognizes it as guilt and wonders about it all afternoon.

By then, he is starving.

He has been out of the cold chamber longer than Hydra ever kept him out and without proper sustenance, he won’t last long.

He goes to the kitchen.

 

His first mistake is remembering.

His handler’s name was Karpov before he was bought and sold and frozen like the meat in the freezer. Karpov loved peaches.

The Asset opens a can of peaches and remembers the reward of fruit after a successful mission. He remembers biting into a peach. He remembers being congratulated on perfect execution and then going to his small room to eat. He remembers eating in the large room, too, with other soldiers. They spoke loudly and laughed often, but he was quiet, eating meat and cheese, hard bread and dried figs. He ate quietly and excused himself. He slept in the small room and awoke when he was called for.

Karpov was a kind man, he remembers. One would say that he showed respect for the Asset, but the Asset knows better.

Karpov treated him the way you would treat a dog.

 

His second mistake is understanding.

If the Asset was rewarded with fruit, he would continue to do well to be further rewarded. If he had comfortable sleeping quarters, he would continue to be grateful. If he could shower when he wanted and sit with the soldiers and eat when he was hungry, he would feel included, like he was one of them. He would obey orders and commit atrocities because he was loyal—Karpov had provided for him and he delivered time and time again.

Like a dog.

When he was sold, after Karpov had gone, he was turned into a machine.

A machine does not need food. A machine does not need comfort. A machine does not need rewards or company or sleep or free will. A machine will commit the atrocity because it risks termination if it does not. A machine will kill or be killed.

A machine will comply, if only to stay out of the cold.

He is no longer a dog, and he is no machine.

He eats the peaches.

 

Instinctively, he knows this is a poor choice, but the peaches are sweet with syrup and crisp though they are not cold. They slide against his tongue and when he bites into them, he is reminded of a childhood he had long since forgotten.

He remembers the Captain in his too big suit, staring up at him with wide eyes and a sad smile. He remembers words spoken in desperation, a plea to let him help. The end of the line. I’m with you till the end of the line.

He is no longer that person either.

So, he finishes the can and allows himself a smile and a moment of happiness before the regret settles in.

It doesn’t take long.

He makes it to the bathroom without vomiting on the way, but the peaches splatter against the tile and he barely has time to lift the toilet seat before the second wave hits him.

When his stomach is empty, he slumps against the wall and lets himself cry for the first time in decades. He hangs his head and weeps. He knew it wouldn’t be this easy, but he had hoped.

It takes him a few minutes of struggling on shaky legs before he can compose himself. He washes his face, rinses his mouth, then cleans the floor.

He goes back into the kitchen and throws the can away.

At some point, he has to admit defeat, so he goes upstairs and opens the closet.

He knows how to put the IV in by himself, knows which bag to hook up and the appropriate amount to give himself. He knows this, and still it takes him twice as long as usual to talk himself into it.

He is not a machine, but he will malfunction without this.

It makes him inexplicably sad.

When he is through, he Googles how to properly introduce solid food to a patient recovering from TPN treatment. He makes another list.

 

—

 

He watches TV exclusively. He doesn’t risk leaving the house.

There is a program called Will and Grace that shows on weekend mornings. It makes him laugh.

He sleeps regularly and takes two showers in a day simply because he can. He opens cans and blends the food into pulp then dilutes it with water. He takes slow sips and doesn’t eat any more peaches.

The logistics of the house are in the back of his mind. He knows each property must be paid for in advance from funds that were well cared for; they will not run out for a while, but he doesn’t know how long exactly. He knows he cannot stay here forever but he doesn’t know how to leave.

When he does leave, however, he makes a mental note to disable the connecting systems of the house. If there are still Hydra agents lurking around, he doesn’t want them to find out he’s been here.

If he can access the control centre of Hydra’s assets, he can remove the house from any list it may be on, but he doesn’t know how. It’s not like Hydra has a website he can log into. The system itself is a shadow, existing on multiple servers located all over the world. It is hidden within companies and organizations and governments that know how to cover their tracks. He painstakingly reads through all of the information the leaked file provided and makes another list of all the shell companies and names associated with Hydra and starts taking them apart piece by piece. If he searches hard enough, he will find what he needs.

 

He makes list after list, plan after plan of survival, of attack. He makes spreadsheets.

He knows all the locations of all the safe houses in all the world, and how to access them. He knows the names and possible locations of the remaining Hydra agents. He knows how to make spaghetti and meatballs and wonders if this is a remnant of a life he’s forgotten, or if someone in Siberia taught him to cook.

The former sounds more plausible.

He finds a puzzle on a shelf and starts to put it together. Day by day, piece by piece, pieces of his own life fit themselves together like the Café Terrace at Night.

He remembers Siberia.

He remembers it clearly.

He remembers the food and the people, the comfort, the warmth.

He remembers it wasn’t always like that.

 

He was found, broken and bleeding at the bottom of a mountain.

(He remembers falling and losing consciousness but regaining it somewhere in the middle. He fell fast and when he opened his eyes, the ground was rapidly approaching. He tried to break his fall with his arm and then there was pain, and darkness.)

He was found, broken and bleeding at the bottom of a mountain and from there, they didn’t know what to do with him. They talked about him like he wasn’t there. There was a ringing in his ears but he heard every word. They were nervous—that much was obvious. They didn’t want to be caught with an injured American soldier.

They didn’t want to be caught with a dead American soldier, either.

So, they cut away at his arm, cleaned the wound without anesthesia, and bandaged it properly so he wouldn’t bleed out and it wouldn’t get infected. They gave him clothes to wear and locked him in a cell and pretended not to hear him screaming to be let go.

He knew who he was back them and he screamed for help, begged for the Captain or death, whichever found him first. It was cold in the cell and he pretended to sleep on the hard floor. Otherwise, he passed out from the pain.

They moved him regularly. He was always in chains, blindfolded, gagged.

They tortured him, whether for fun or to see how much he could withstand, he didn’t know.

He didn’t care.

Somewhere along the line, he lost track of the days, the weeks, the months.

They started to test their new technology, started to put him in the cold chamber. He spent hours shivering while they recalibrated and entered new calculations. He spent hours contemplating how to kill himself.

After he was moved seventeen times, they had perfected the chamber. They put him in in 1946 and he awoke in 1949 to the face of Armin Zola.

They had new technology by then.

They used the mind machine on him until he forgot his name, until he stopped asking for the Captain.

 

The missions come back to him at the most inopportune times.

He is brushing his teeth and recalls a man with horn rimmed glasses and a bullet hole through his eye. He is folding clothes into a duffel bag and he sees two targets shot from a distance. He is watching Anderson Cooper and a woman with a bloody face appears to him.

He remembers Howard Stark when he sees his son, Tony, on TMZ. He doesn’t remember the purpose of the mission, only the startled look on the old man’s face.

It doesn’t make him feel good.

 

—

 

He has analyzed the files on the internet but they do not give a clear picture of the Winter Soldier’s history, and it frustrates him. He can only piece things together so much with his muddled memory.

That frustrates him more.

He Googles ‘The Winter Soldier’ but search results only bring up the wreck in the Potomac and Twitter threads that speculate about the Soldier’s true identity. He Googles ‘Captain America’ which yields greater results.

The first thing he sees is a photo of the Captain standing beside a man with his face. They are one and the same but he doesn’t recall when the photo was taken or ever looking that happy. The search takes him to the Wikipedia page for James Buchanan Barnes.

He reads it and his eyes begin to blur at the endless information about a man he can’t remember being. He reads about his life like it is fiction; he tries to remember the events and details but all he remembers is the Captain, skinny and small, searching his pockets for a key that’s under a brick.

According to the page, there is an exhibit about the Captain at the Smithsonian.

He considers it.

 

It takes him two days to finally muster up the courage to step outside. He does so during the day, when he knows the neighbors are at work. Still, the museum is packed with people. The exhibit is even more popular now that the Captain’s face is plastered all over the television, the newspapers, his foggy memories.

When he goes there, in less regimented attire, with a baseball cap and gloves on, he faces himself, reads about himself, tries to remember the life he used to have.

Images come back, the way they have been coming, but he remembers nothing of the smiling boy who fought alongside Captain America nor of the laughing child in photographs with a young Steve Rogers. He can’t recall ever being on a playground or a battlefield with this man and has no recollection of three younger siblings, parents, friends.

He nearly has a panic attack in the dimly lit room and ducks into a more enclosed area.

It is a mistake.

An interview plays on a screen: someone is asking the Captain who inspires him to continue fighting the war and he tugs a hesitant person closer to him. The Asset watches himself fumble over words at first and then clear his throat and salute the camera, a smile playing at his lips. He introduces himself: “Sergeant James Barnes, sir,” then nudges the Captain hard in the ribs and complains, “I got work to do, pal.”

The Asset can’t remember ever being so full of life, not even in Siberia, not even when he thought he was free.

He can’t remember saying those words, can’t remember being in that place.

He can’t remember being that person.

He leaves the museum and decides it would be best if he leaves Washington, as well.

 

—

 

The safe house in New York is a three-story brownstone in Greenwich Avenue with too many windows and a basement apartment he doesn’t want to explore. The code is 1872 and again, he is grateful it has not been changed.

He follows the same routines he did in Washington, disabling the house’s security systems and taking inventory of all its resources. He is pleased to see that in the month since the Director’s death, no one has visited this location either.

Emboldened by his somewhat successful trip to the museum and the fact that he made it to New York undetected, he goes out. He goes to convenience stores at night where he can buy milk and eggs, sometimes bread. If he goes early enough to the grocery store, he can avoid most people, and the cashiers are usually too tired to pay much attention to him.

Although he still has Aaron Sanders’ credit card, he doesn’t feel comfortable using it. Instead, he uses the cash he has to buy new clothes at Marine Layer, instantly regretting how much money he spends on a single t-shirt. After he gets back, changes, and realizes what comfort is, however, he throws the basic black and outdated street clothes out in the trash and goes back to the store two more times to add more colors to his closet.

There are enough cans and jars in the house to outlast a nuclear apocalypse, but he is sick of peas and carrots and beans every night. He goes through most of the frozen chicken and beef in the first few weeks and once he gets comfortable at the grocery store, he has no problem buying all of his food there.

To the untrained eye, he is another Manhattan hipster with a scruffy beard and too long hair who wears gloves in the summer because he can.

He still feels a sense of foreboding, a paranoia that will follow him wherever he goes, but he gets better at dealing with it.

 

He looks in the mirror and recognizes the Asset, but he knows that isn’t who he is anymore. What should he call himself? The museum suggests James Buchanan Barnes, but it doesn’t feel right, not completely.

He remembers being called James by his mother—she said it when he was in trouble.

His father, his sisters and his brother called him Jimmy.

The soldiers called him Barnes—Dugan, Morita, Jones, Falsworth, Dernier. He remembers them.

It is odd, but he remembers them as though through a fog. He can see them, see their laughter and their teasing jokes and their angry faces when guns were being fired, but he still can’t feel for them.

He can’t feel for his father, his sisters, his brother.

He can’t feel for his mother.

It would break his heart but he can’t remember what that feels like either.

 

He looks in the mirror, and his mind plays tricks on him.

He sees himself, covered in blood.

He is younger, his hair is shorter, eyes less tired but his body looks weak. His left arm is missing, torn off and bloody. His whole body is bloody.

It scares him and he reaches out instinctively, breaks the glass by accident and curses under his breath. He is just himself when he looks again, but the image haunts him for the rest of the night, week, month if he’s being honest with himself.

He doesn’t sleep well, that much is evident.

 

He ventures out, however.

He goes further and further each day.

He goes to the park and refuses to feed pigeons. He buys groceries in the middle of the afternoon. He tries a bakery down the street from the house and wants to go back every day and try everything in the window that is covered in chocolate.

He gets an iPhone.

Someone at the grocery store was arguing with their spouse about Androids being superior but when he goes to the Apple Store, the guy who helps him talks it up and excuses himself by saying, “I’ve been Marko,” and it is the weirdest fucking thing he’s ever heard so of course he’s sold.

Ironically, his favorite place to be becomes the Starbucks beside Little Owl.

 

The barista is nice when he orders a black coffee and sits quietly in the corner, watching the exit. The first time he goes, there are too many people and he only lasts less than ten minutes before he rushes out to get back to the house. She smiles and waves, says, “Have a nice day!”

It’s that act that has him going back the next day.

After two weeks, he’s staying for an hour and a half, ordering a second coffee and a cupcake as well.

One day when she’s cleaning a table beside him, she asks, “Are you a vet?”

He doesn’t know what to say.

He looks at his shoes.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to pry. My brother’s a vet, that’s why I asked. He doesn’t like public places either.”

He still doesn’t know what to say, so he says, “Sorry,” and she waves him off with a smile.

“Don’t be. You should be proud.”

She carries on with her work and says her usual cheerful goodbye when he leaves a half hour later.

He should be proud.

He _should_ be proud.

He was a hero once. He saved lives, helped people. His death, as the history books tell him, was the catalyst for finding the Red Skull, for taking down Hydra, at least for a little while.

He feels a surge of hatred toward Margaret Carter for allowing Project Paperclip to happen; it is disproportionate to the actual offence.

He should be proud but instead his achievements and heroics are marred by the blood stains Hydra forced on him. He tries to comfort himself by remembering that he killed bad people and then feels sick when he remembers the innocent people who were in the way and the bad people who made him do it were worse than everybody combined.

They have to be stopped, he decides. They are a plague and they have to be eradicated from the earth.

 

—

 

He starts by packing up.

He has accumulated a lot of things since he’s been in New York but by anyone else’s standards, he has nothing.

The clothing he bought all fits into a backpack along with a few notebooks, the laptop from the first house, granola bars, and cash that he sews into the lining for safe keeping.

He picks up a cheap car at a chop shop and fills the trunk with all the guns and knives that he doesn’t want to part with. He cleans the house the way he did in Washington, removing all traces that he was there and destroying every shred of evidence that Hydra ever touched the place.

 

The night before he plans to leave, he stretches out on the couch and eats a pizza he picked up from John’s. He’s packed and ready to go but would prefer a full of night of sleep if he can get it before he hits the road.

He’s multitasking, rereading parts of what’s now being called the SHIELD leak and watching Bill Maher. He’s tapped into the security system of the safe house and is taking the code apart bit by bit to remove it from the greater network in case anyone else is watching. He did the same in Washington but this time, he is more precise, more focussed; it comes to him more naturally since he’s already done it once.

He’s wrapping up the last of loose ends and reluctantly saying goodbye to Bleecker Street’s comfort and style and deliciously greasy pizza.

He’s barely paying attention to the TV but when he glances up, something Bill says makes him do a double take.

“So, after all of this bullshit—the Republicans blaming Obama and saying the Democrats are overreacting and half of congress being arrested or subpoenaed—Captain America himself put out the following statement:

‘It has come to my attention that people think what happened in DC was part of some political agenda and that is simply not true. What happened was not the result of the left versus the right, nor was it a ploy or plot to persuade voters in one direction or the next; it was literally an act carried out by myself and select others to stop millions of people from being killed. In 1945, I crashed a plane into the Arctic to save lives, and two months ago, I crashed three. I don’t regret it. If you think this is about Republicans and Democrats, you’re either not paying attention or you just don’t care, but don’t pretend to have any regard for the potential loss of life or the information that was released if your name was on the list of contributors and benefactors of Hydra. Majority of the corporations that were in league with Hydra support or are run by the right, and the number of Republican politicians who lined their pockets with blood is staggering. So, please, kindly shut the fuck up until you understand what went on. And then, when your head has been removed from your ass, we can have an adult conversation.’ “


Bill starts laughing again and a groan comes from the man on the couch.

“Fuck Steve, you’re an idiot,” he mumbles.

He surprises himself, catches himself off guard. He watches the Captain—Steve—come out from backstage and sit facing Bill after shaking his hand. They are both laughing, making small talk. It is lost on him in the flood of images that crowd his mind.

He doesn’t hear what they are talking about.

More memories start to come to him, glimpses of the past, moments long forgotten, and he doesn’t know how to feel about them. He doesn’t feel anything. He never feels anything. It’s the same as always. He sees these past events play out as if they happened to someone else, and he wonders if they happened at all. They seem so distant and strange and he searches his mind for more but the television catches his attention again.

“Are you comfortable talking about the Winter Soldier?”

Steve nods his head, though he looks reluctant, and then he launches into a speech that was probably prepared beforehand.

“You read the files, or the gist of them, I’m sure. I think majority of the information is all out there. The Winter Soldier is an American prisoner of war who was taken by Soviets and later traded or sold to Hydra. He was subjected to torture and numerous experiments, none of it which he consented to, and then he was conditioned and modified to become a killer. He committed crimes because he had to, because he was programmed to.” Steve shakes his head, shrugs, like he wants that to be the end of it, but Bill tilts his head to the side and leans in.

“He was your best friend.” It isn’t a question and Steve nods, a frown on his face. Bill quickly adds to his statement. “Can we talk about—I don’t want to piss you off and I don’t want to sound like fucking Oprah, but can we talk about the political and cultural ramifications of that? You’re Captain America and your right-hand man is this secret killer who assassinated a president and worked for this terrible organization. The revelation is huge.”

“Yes, absolutely, but we need to clarify a few things here first, and you gotta understand that I’m biased but I’m also looking at this from a legal perspective. We’ve—and by we, I mean my team and I—we’ve spoken to lawyers and some of us are testifying in court about Hydra and about the corruption in the government. I’ve spoken to Peggy about her involvement in all this and SHIELD’s role in all this.

So, for starters, he _is_ my best friend; that isn’t going to change. Bucky Barnes is, and always has been, my best friend in the whole fucking world. This is how I’m looking at it: if someone is tortured long enough, they’ll do anything. Case in point, we all heard from Tony Stark what happened to him when he was tortured in Afghanistan. He’s currently providing his own documents of Stark Industry’s and his father’s involvement in Project Paperclip. But here’s where we get political—”

“Right, because of the files that point to the Winter Soldier killing Howard and Maria Stark.”

“Exactly, and Tony’s seen them and understands what they mean, but he also understands the subsequent evidence we have submitted to the Supreme Court, and it _is_ evidence. I’ve seen a bunch of people saying it’s circumstantial, it can’t be proven, it still doesn’t convince them—but it’s evidence. There are photos and videos, there are logged details about the Winter Soldier’s “care”, his surgeries, the experiments they did on him. Tony understands that what happened over the years was not Bucky’s fault. He was tortured, he was programmed and tortured and programmed again. They erased his memory over and over again.

It becomes political because no judge, no jury should convict him or even want to convict him of the crimes committed while he was a prisoner, but he’s currently being convicted by the public and probably will be for a long time. The public doesn’t know what they’re looking at. They see a big picture and a big villain instead of looking at the evidence.”

Bill nods and stutters on his words before he starts to speak again.

He looks a little lost for words; he’s not the only one.

“Listen, I grew up with Bucky Barnes. My parents grew up with Bucky Barnes. I had a Bucky Bear for fuck’s sake, but you can see how people would feel about this.”

“Totally, and that’s why I’m here. People are going to see a killer but—it’s like, when you look at a child soldier who is taken from their family and forced at gunpoint to kill others, a person who is told their life is a lie, given drugs and alcohol to placate them and told they have to kill or someone is going to kill them first, do you see a murderer or do you see a child? Do you see a victim? Bucky Barnes is the longest standing prisoner of war and that’s what people have to understand.

And, I’m gonna go off on a tangent here, because I didn’t really want to talk about Bucky but you made me do it, so let’s get back on topic: while Bucky was programmed to do those things, there is clear evidence that no one else was. There were no other Winter Soldier programs, there isn’t any documentation of them using memory wipes on other people. So, the lists of names, all those fucking coward politicians who are trying to deny their involvement, they’re liars. They all volunteered to be part of a global—”

“Nazi death organization?”

“Pretty much.” Steve laughs, but he launches back into his tirade. “People signed up for it and they were happy to be part of it and profit from it, and now they’re pretending they had no idea. Bullshit. This isn’t Harry Potter. They haven’t been under the imperious curse. It’s a stupid excuse and I won’t buy it.”

“But you buy brainwashing? I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate because I believe it. Aliens exist, brainwashing is so pedestrian at this point.”

“At the end of the day, I believe Bucky. I believe what I saw. What happened in Washington—I was there with him, I was there when the programming, the brainwashing, call it whatever—I was there when it failed. And I saw him; he was two completely different people. The Winter Soldier is guilty of those crimes, there’s no question about it, but Bucky Barnes is not and he should not be held responsible for them. The people who tortured him, who made him into the Winter Soldier—they should be held responsible and I think that’s what’s happening right now. People who were involved in Hydra, who bankrolled it, who benefitted from it, they’re all being held responsible for the atrocities that they helped make happen.

The impact this should have culturally is that we should never again allow any subset of government agency to have that much power. There should be more transparency in all levels of government. What SHIELD did was wrong—they recruited Nazi scientists. Maybe they furthered our technological advancements, but they did it at the cost of our ideals and our morals. They should have never worked with those people. SHIELD needs to be held accountable and that’s uncomfortable for me; fuck—my friends started the organization, but they made mistakes in the name of science and secrecy and it cost the whole world, the whole country, enormously. The government shouldn’t have secrets from its people.”

“What about secrets that could potentially do harm or cause panic?”

“What, that aliens exist? If we knew that, maybe we would have been better prepared for New York.” Steve takes a breath and it looks like he hasn’t taken one since he started talking, but he continues nonetheless. “No, I think if you can’t trust the people of your country, then you have no right governing them. The government knew, on some level, that Hydra was still up and running, recruiting, assassinating. They knew and they did nothing. They let it continue because they benefited from it. This is an organization founded on anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and hate, and for the US government— _the US government!_ —to actively endorse and support it and allow it to grow to the point of project insight, that’s fucking embarrassing.”

Bill claps his hands together and laughs. He looks slightly awed and he stumbles on his words again. “Holy shit, can you stay for the panel? Can you stay forever? This is incredible. I have so much more to ask you but we gotta get to our panel. Maybe next time, we’ll just schedule you for the whole time slot and I’ll ask you how you feel about vaccinations. Any last thoughts you want to share?”

“Yeah, vaccinate your fucking kids!” They both laugh and Steve shrugs his shoulders, gets a little tenser and then sighs, releasing all the energy he has in his body. “Seriously, though, I think it’s important for everyone, especially the younger crowd, the teenagers and young adults that are growing up in this technological world—read those files, understand them. Don’t take anything on face value, not even your government. Learn things for yourself and ask questions, challenge authority because authorities aren’t always right and as you can clearly see, sometimes they’re shitty and corrupt. We’re still working on the details and then we’ll release the information but eventually, we’re having a rally in front of Avengers Tower. Come by, we’ll make signs, we’ll talk to you and answer your questions and together we’ll figure out how we prevent something like this from happening again.

We want change. We want the right people to go away for their crimes. We want justice for those who were victimized in all this. We want to punch Nazis and create a better America for you, for your children, for your grandchildren. We need to be better; we’re going to be better.”

 

“Bucky,” says the man on the couch. The man who is less than human, more than machine. The longest standing prisoner of war. The villain, the victim, the Sargent, the soldier. “He called me Bucky.”

 

—

 

He should be sleeping, finishing removing the house from the Hydra network, eating his pizza. He should be doing something other than standing in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror.

He didn’t bother to fix it after the other night and as he stares at himself, he makes a rash and ridiculous decision.

There are scissors in the drawer, an electric trimmer, disposable razors.

He starts with the beard, trimming it down and then shaving it off entirely. He nicks himself on the neck and wipes away the blood with ease.

His hair is a bigger challenge but one that he’s up to.

He cuts the locks off until it’s short enough to trim and then he takes it down so it’s buzzed on the sides, long and curly up top. He’s seen guys at Starbucks with the same hairdo but decides it isn’t exactly for him, so he trims the top down a little more until he likes it.

He looks in the mirror and smiles at his reflection.

He’s not used to seeing a clean-shaven face; his bare jaw and silly chin looking back at him. He’s not used to hair that doesn’t touch his shoulders.

He wonders how long it’s been since it was this short. He looks more like the man at the museum than ever before except his jaw is set a little too firm, his eyes are a little too tired. But still, there he is, finally looking up after all these years, finally visible.

James Buchanan Barnes.

It doesn’t sound right, even in his mind.

He smiles to himself in the mirror, touches his face, runs a hand through his short hair.

Steve called him Bucky.

That’s what he remembers most when the memories flood his mind.

Steve called him Bucky.

Bucky, he thinks.

“Bucky,” he says out loud.

Bucky, Bucky, Bucky.

Other memories come to him: his name whispered in the dark, someone else’s hands in his hair, a kiss on his silly chin, a gasp, a moan, a whimper.

He closes his eyes and sees it, clear as day. Bare skin and freckles, blond hair and a bed. The memories are there but the feelings are still eluding him. He can’t remember what everything means.

Did it happen? Did it really happen, or is it some fantasy, some delusion, some dream he wishes were reality?

He needs to know.

But not now.

Not now.

 

—

 

He finishes disconnecting the house and then he leaves.

If he stays, he will do something stupid and he needs to keep a level head.

In the car, he remembers and remembers and remembers.

 

Bucky liked oranges, he remembers.

Bucky was fascinated by science, he remembers.

Bucky kissed pretty girls to pass the time and distract him from the pretty boy he couldn’t kiss at all.

He tries not to think of that.

Bucky had two sisters and one brother. He was six years older than Rebecca and he learned to braid her hair.

The family had a cat. Bucky loved cats. He named it Brooklyn and fed it scraps.

Bucky worked so hard his hands bled and he wrapped them up and worked some more.

Bucky took care of Steve.

Bucky died.

Now, Bucky likes pastries and the shitty coffee at Starbucks.

He makes spaghetti and hides guns in the trunk of his car. He misses Will and Grace already. He doesn’t have any contacts in his phone and doesn’t know if he ever will. He is paranoid and confused; his mind is all over the place.

He is focussed on one thing and one thing alone: destroying what remains of Hydra.

(That is a lie: he is focussed on two things and the second thing is Steve Rogers.)

 

His plan of action is as follows:

He will go to every safe house and dismantle it. He will take the money; it’s only fair. He will destroy everything Hydra needed and donate the food and usable technology—he can’t exactly go around collecting laptops and televisions. The furniture may be a problem. The guns are definitely a problem.

He devises a new plan.

 

—

 

He starts in Ohio and makes his way through every state, to every safe house. Some states have two or three and he has to suffer through two weeks in Florida for some reason. He keeps his hair short and his paranoia to a minimum, eats pie for breakfast, watches all three Lord of the Rings movies (extended versions) and reads the Harry Potter series twice.

He runs through books faster than gas and stays up too late catching up on movies.

He watches the news and reads the paper every day from front to back—he learned from Order of the Phoenix that the most important news isn’t always on the front page.

 

Bucky collects everything from the houses that will help him take down the greater network that is Hydra, the remnants of the fire that Captain America started.

He starts with weapons; experimental guns and bullets, technology that allows him to override security systems, tap into networks that don’t belong to him, steal from others. He finds out who creates the devices and catalogues it all for later.

Each safe house has a distinct fingerprint and when he pieces them all together, he finds a whole hand with lines of heart, head, health, success, lines of fate, lines of life. He finds what he needs and he finds the centre of it all. The server is located in Jersey, of all places, close to the CPU that housed Zola’s mind before they blew it up. It’s ironic but he’s not impressed. Jersey, of all places. He decides that will be his last stop.

It should make things easy. He can see the end. He can see the complete and total destruction of Hydra and his freedom from their shackles, but he should know better by now.

Nothing is easy.

 

The real nightmares start when he reaches Odessa. The memories keep him up anyway, but these are different.

He dreams that he never broke his arm, that they tore at it until it came off. The truth isn’t far from the fiction, but at least they only destroyed his shoulder and not the whole thing. He dreams that Zola is waiting for him in each new safe house, and Bucky goes willingly with him to a new lab, designed just for him.

He dreams that he is making love to Steve in a tent in the middle of a forest and Steve wraps a hand around his neck. Bucky wakes up and his throat is sore and he can’t tell where the dream began and where reality reached him.

He has nightmares about the time his mind refers to as “Before Karpov”. He wasn’t the asset, wasn’t the soldier, the fist of Hydra—he was still clinging to Bucky Barnes but he was fading fast.

It takes exactly five months and three days to travel to and infiltrate all of the US safe houses safely without detection.

It takes exactly five months and three days and he still isn’t free.

 

—

 

The SHIELD files provided him with more information than he needed to know, but with nowhere to put his newfound knowledge.

He imagines Natalia Alianovna Romanova is hiding as well. The files were rich with information on her missions, on her past with the KGB, The Red Room, SHIELD and all the contract kills she entertained on the weekends. He would contact her, but she is a ghost, just like him. She has not been at the Avengers Tower where Stark threw an elaborate Halloween party for Stark Industries employees. It made the news and all the Avengers were present except for Romanova and Steve.

It doesn’t make sense to contact anyone else. He doesn’t think they would honor the requests he has for the safe houses and he doesn’t want to take the risk of any compromised material or weapons falling into the wrong hands.

He thinks about the man with the wings—Sam Wilson.

A quick Google search gets him started on the right path. Hydra may not have a website he can log into, but the Avengers do and even though Wilson isn’t an Avenger, and even though he doesn’t have a login, it’s a start.

He hits a wall when the website’s security system starts talking back to him.

Bucky raises an eyebrow at the dialogue box that appears, the curious words that ask him what he’s attempting to do.

Bucky is curious as well. He writes back, _I am looking for Sam Wilson. Can you help?_

He wonders if he’s talking to a person, if maybe Stark himself is on the other side of this, but the syntax doesn’t sound like the Stark he’s seen on TV.

The person writes, _I have accessed your computer’s camera and have identified you as James Buchanan Barnes. Are you sure you do not wish to contact Captain Rogers?_

Bucky looks around the room as though he’s being watched, and if he wasn’t confused before, he is not. “What the fuck?” He contemplates breaking the computer to end the conversation but more text appears.

_I assure you, you are in no danger. I can put you in contact with Mr. Wilson, however I will alert him that you are calling so as to give him the option of—_

Bucky rolls his eyes. Clearly, he isn’t talking to Stark, but whoever he is talking to is wordy and he is too paranoid to keep the conversation going for too long. The new security system he installed will tell him if the house is being targeted but he eyes the cabinet where he has three firearms stashed, just in case. He wants to get this over and done with.

The last safe house has been cleaned out so he says, out loud, “Okay, yeah, collect call from Bucky Barnes, I’m sure he’ll be delighted.”

 

It takes a minute during which he starts to regret going along with a plan hatched by words on a computer screen, but nothing sinister happens. The FaceTime app opens on his computer and it starts to ring. It’s the middle of the day and he doesn’t get to say a word before Sam Wilson visibly sighs, rolls his eyes, and speaks, sounding completely unimpressed.

“Are you fucking serious?” he asks, and Bucky clears his throat, looks down and avoids Sam’s eye.

“I’m sorry to do this but I didn’t know who else to call. Please—listen to me. I have information for you. I can send it somewhere, I’d rather not say over the—well, like this. I have files, codes, um—” he doesn’t know where to start. He sees Sam’s patience growing thin and almost wishes he hadn’t started this.

“What did you do, Barnes?”

“I have, well, I have the locations to all the Hydra safe houses within the United States.” He says it quickly. He still doesn’t know how safe this is or who the middle man was. “I’ve deactivated all the security measures. All the information is ready for you. The houses have a lot of resources: computers, phones, furniture, food, even medicine. Make sure you destroy the guns.”

“The what?”

“You heard me. The guns. Listen, there’s a reason I called you and not Stark. You have to destroy them. Don’t repurpose them, don’t distribute them—destroy them.”

Sam sighs again and then scoffs. “You know, I’ve been looking for you for months and you’ve been cleaning out safe houses? Why didn’t you call—”

“Steve?” Bucky answers, shaking his head slightly. “I’m not ready for that yet. Just, please, take care of the houses.”

Sam stares at him for a minute and then nods, slowly, giving in. He narrows his eyes and asks, “You got a phone? A real phone? I’ll give you my actual number. Here—write down my address.”

When Bucky’s gotten all the information he needs, he hangs up and hopes he has done the right thing.

The Avengers website has kicked him off without a goodbye from his new friend and he stares at the camera on his laptop for a while. He copies all the files he has saved onto a flash drive and leaves the computer behind after he wipes it. He uses a new one just in case.

 

—

 

He doesn’t see anything on the news and considers that a good sign.

When he goes back to the house on Bleecker Street after his extended road trip, he watches from afar as movers take furniture out the front door, complaining that the sofa is too large. He takes his phone out to thank Sam Wilson; he texts him a smiley face to which he gets the middle finger in return.

He sees Steve completely by accident, coming out of the house with a venti frappucino of some sort, full of whipped cream, of all things. Natalia Alianovna Romanova is with him, her arm linked with his, and they are laughing.

He doesn’t stick around, just watches them navigate around each other on the sidewalk like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Natalia playfully puts whipped cream on Steve’s nose and laughs, holding her side, as he fails to wipe it off. He kisses the top of her head and Bucky has seen enough. He turns away and disappears into the busy street.

He thinks about it all day.

 

—

 

He rents an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.

This is a mistake.

The thought of Steve being so close keeps him up at night and the image of Bucky Barnes covered in blood haunts him.

The safe houses are dealt with; they are no longer his problem. Before he contacted Sam Wilson, he removed every single one of them from the network like he had planned. Now, he searches for evidence of their existence and comes up empty. It makes him proud that he’s fucked with Hydra in such a big way. The safe houses aren’t even physically theirs anymore; Sam took care of that. When the information finally hit the news, it was in a small article, easily missed, that credited an anonymous person with donating computers to inner city schools. A few weeks later, the houses were given away via lottery to families who were in need. The guns weren’t mentioned at all and for that, Bucky is grateful.

The apartment is in Aaron Sanders’s name, as is his new bank account and credit card. His phone is billed to Aaron and his Apple ID recognizes him by that name as well, but for some reason, he always says Bucky when asked for his name at Starbucks. He wants to be a new person, he _needs_ to be a new person, but he can’t get away from it.

He calls himself Bucky in his head, when he’s alone, when he’s thinking about the past.

He has Bucky’s memories, Bucky’s nightmares.

He has Bucky’s feelings now too; sometimes they hit him when he least expects them to. They’re vague, like the hint of someone’s perfume after they’ve left the room or sunspots that linger when you close your eyes. Sometimes he thinks of Steve Rogers and starts smiling for no reason and he feels stupid and confused about it. Sometimes he touches himself under the covers at night and wishes it was someone else’s hand, someone with blond hair and blue eyes and teeth that bite. He wonders where that desire comes from, where that want, where that need found him and took hold.

He _knows_ but he still doesn’t know if it’s real.

He wants to make the best of being Aaron Sanders but Bucky has been in the shadows for too long and he can’t allow it to happen again.

Renting an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen was a mistake, and he should have known better.

 

—

 

TMZ tells him that Stark is spending the week in Malibu and Thor is back in London for the holidays. He knows for a fact that Romanova and Barton are in Syria because it’s been covered all over the news and Banner is currently in Portugal at a conference. Steve, on the other hand, is home.

So, he goes to the Avengers Tower and walks through the front doors.

The official website informed him that the first twenty-five floors of the building are dedicated to Stark Industries. The ten on top of those are research and development labs that high school science students and small research groups can utilize. On top of that, there are five floors of museum artifacts, historical documents and displays, and secure files that are in impenetrable vaults. After that, the website is vague.

He assumes there is a level or two dedicated to Tony Stark’s cars because there are photos suggesting that he has an obscene number of cars. He knows from other photos, like the ones at Halloween, that there is a large loft-style area where parties are held. He has seen bedrooms on the Avengers Instagram and an indoor pool on Stark’s Twitter. But really, considering the size of the building, it’s anybody’s guess where Steve could be.

The Avengers have been operating from the tower for years protected by Stark’s security systems, but after everything he managed to do with Hydra’s system, he’s feeling confident he can get past whatever the tower has in store for him.

 

It’s 2am and the building is closed aside from the lobby, so he casually breaks the door leading to the main staircase and starts to go up. If he can make it to the labs this way, he can tap into the system somehow. Or so he thinks.

He’s two floors in when a voice in the sky asks, “How many flights of stairs do you intend on climbing?”

It startles him, but he regains composure quickly and speaks to the wall. He feels a sense of déjà vu that takes him too long to understand. “How many are there?”

“Well,” the voice chuckles, and for some reason, he imagines someone in a room taking off and wiping a pair of smudged glasses. “There are 93 stories in this building and these stairs will only take you to the 40th floor. From there, higher security systems will be triggered if you attempt to get further, and I will assess the severity of the situation, deciding whether or not to put the tower on lockdown. It is unwise to continue on this course.” The voice pauses and then asks, as an afterthought. “Why are you here?”

He considers the question for a moment and shrugs because he’s talking to a wall and not answering it would be rude. “I need to talk to Steve Rogers.”

The voice pauses again and he actually hears it hum quietly, as though weighing its options.

“The last time we spoke, you dismissed the idea of speaking to the Captain. Why have you changed your mind?”

“I’m—” he starts, not understanding, but then finally clicking in. “You’re the one from the website.”

“Yes, and you are the one who attempted to override my systems. I do say, it was very rude. Putting you in contact with Samuel Wilson was an act of kindness, one that benefitted many people and I thank you for your part in it, but I apologize. It would be unprofessional of me to allow you access to the Captain.” The voice pauses but Bucky doesn’t try to interrupt it. “You _are_ the Winter Soldier, as well as James Barnes. You have already done considerable physical damage to the Captain and you are currently carrying two guns and four knives. Had you come under different circumstances, I would be more amenable to your cause but I believe you intend to penetrate my firewalls and attempt to gain control of my systems, yet again. It would be irresponsible to let you through.”

He starts to climb the stairs again, determined to get to the top, ignoring the voice altogether.

“Sergeant Barnes,” it warns.

“My name is Bucky,” he snaps, stopping mid-step, then he sighs. “I’m sorry, I—"

There is a moment where he almost expects someone to appear; the person behind the proverbial curtain makes an appearance and allows him through. But then the voice speaks again and he gets out of his head. “There is no need to apologize,” it says, kindly. “I have insulted you.” Once again, it sounds like it’s sighing and Bucky wonders if there is someone there, thinking it through. “You should know, I do not only possess the ability to recognize you. I am also able to analyze you. Perhaps, if you would allow it, we could come to an understanding.”

He looks at the wall, still wondering where the voice is coming from, and nods. “What do you have in mind?”

 

—

 

Steve is sleeping when he reaches the floor his new friend Jarvis directs him to but Bucky doesn’t have to wait for him to wake up.

Bucky looks around the room at all the things Steve could use to attack him if this were to go sideways, or if he was in a particularly sour mood. An empty glass, a lamp, a small figurine of a robot, a notebook, the clock on the bedside table, the bedside table. Steve could easily run to the other side of the room and get his shield. He could throw Bucky through the window, no matter how reinforced it may be.

He could use his fists.

But he won’t.

“You always were a light sleeper,” he remarks, leaning against a dresser and cracking his knuckles just to do something with his hands.

“How did you get in here?” Steve asks immediately, sitting up and then getting out of bed altogether. He doesn’t move far from where he stands but he is alert and concerned, most likely wondering if the security systems have failed, if he’s in danger.

“I asked,” Bucky says, incredulously. “Well, I attempted to take the stairs and Jarvis intercepted. We’ve come to an agreement.”

“You reasoned with Jarvis?”

“What, like it’s hard?” he shrugs and looks up fondly at the ceiling. “He’s been assured that I won’t hurt you.”

“Sir, he is not wrong,” Jarvis chimes in. “I have run the appropriate calculations and there appears to be a 0.002% chance that Mr. Barnes will harm you physically. I have also secured his weapons, if that is any consolation. I have not yet assessed the emotional damage that may be done, however.”

“Emotional damage?” Steve asks, and Bucky shrugs. “It’s been months,” he sighs, hanging his head. He relaxes but only a little. “I’ve been looking for you for months. Why—"

“I need to ask you a few questions. I need you to be honest.”

“I’m always honest,” Steve assures him, and then sighs again. “How do I know you are? How do I know I’m talking to Bucky and not—” he doesn’t finish his sentence but Bucky understands so he complies.

“Your mom’s name is Sarah,” he starts, shaking his head. They’re wasting time. “You used to put newspaper in your shoes. You fought every kid on our block and the next one over because you could. You were kind of an asshole that way. On my 17th birthday, you drew a picture of us as children. You made sure to emphasize the gap in my front teeth. I took it with me when I shipped out.”

“You took it with you?”

“It was the most important thing I had.”

Steve falters and Bucky repeats his request. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask away.”

He doesn’t know where to start. Memories are clouding his mind and he doesn’t know which one to ask about. He doesn’t know which one is the most important one right now so he starts with something simple, something concrete.

“When did we meet?”

“In a back alley when we were six—you were seven. Some kids were trying to steal your lunch money.”

Bucky nods, recalling the little shrimp who came to his rescue. It was sheer confusion and dumb luck that drove the other boys away and later they laughed about how the two of them held off five guys twice their age.

“Where did we go the night I shipped out?”

“The science fair,” Steve answers, and he smiles like the sun is rising within him. The memory makes Bucky smile too, but not as wide. He remembers their argument. He remembers leaving.

“What did Morita call you after you got shot in Belgium?” Now he’s smiling too, and Steve is rolling his eyes.

“Bottom.”

“Why?”

“Fuck you, Barnes, you know why. I got shot in the ass and you never let me live it down.”

Bucky allows himself to laugh at that and for a moment, the two of them watch each other in silly silence until the smiles face and they get back down to business. Bucky almost doesn’t want to ask his next question but he came here for a reason and the reason is fast approaching.

“When we were in Dawlish, I caught you and Carter fooling around before the briefing and we got into a fight when she left. I punched you. I don’t remember—”

“I made some crack about the girls back home and you losing your touch. It was uncalled for.” He shifts on his feet and Bucky is suddenly aware of how little he is wearing and how uncomfortable this conversation has gotten for him right now. “It was about that girl you took to the fair. What was her name? Why is this relevant?”

“It just is,” Bucky sighs, growing impatient. He adds, “Connie. She was a lesbian.”

“She was a—”

“Lesbian, yeah.” Bucky clears his throat and jumps in further. “Was I in love with you? Did we—Did we ever?”

Steve falters again and it hits Bucky in the gut.

Until now, the memories haven’t enticed feeling from him except for the brief, fleeting moments. Until now, he could close his eyes and watch the past play out just like he watches Will and Grace on TV; completely detached. He watches Steve’s panicked look and it hits him hard. His heart feels heavy.

“I don’t know what you’re asking, Buck.”

Steve turns to the side and walks toward the door but stops and looks at the dresser Bucky is in front of. Maybe he’s looking for clothes. Maybe he’s looking for a way out.

Bucky is still looking for answers.

“I have these memories of us. I don’t know if they’re real or not, and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t trust my own mind,” he explains. “I see things, I hear things, and I don’t know if they really happened or if I imagined them or wished or dreamed. I wanted them to happen. I was in love with you, wasn’t I? I think I still am. Did we—”

“No.”

Instantly, he knows it’s a lie the way he knows the freckles on Steve’s shoulders and the way his chest rises and falls when he is breathing heavy, coughing his lungs out in a hospital bed.

“Yes. Once. We were drunk, it was your—”

“Seventeenth birthday.”

He remembers all at once as though his mind was waiting for Steve to say the words before opening the floodgate of images. A drawing and some cake. A handwritten card and an empty house and a cold night and their hands on each other under the blankets.

“I gave you that drawing and you thanked me with a kiss and then later, when we had drunk some more, you kissed me again and I—I don’t know.”

“I thought I dreamed that. You kept whispering my name like you thought I would disappear. I thought I dreamed the whole thing.”

“You kissed me in the kitchen, Buck. _I_ thought it was a dream. I thought _you_ would disappear.”

They stare at each other for a moment that lasts too long and Bucky remembers and remembers and remembers. He feels and feels and feels.

“Your Ma was at work and we went to your room. We were both so—”

“Sloppy?”

“I remember falling down. I bruised my ass but we still—”

“We still did.”

“We never talked about it.” It isn’t a question—he knows what happened now like it happened yesterday, like it’s happening as he speaks. “I went away and we never talked about it. It was the best thing that ever happened to me and—” his voice breaks and he feels stupid, like Hermione at the Yule Ball but Steve doesn’t act like Ron, stuttering and confused. He comes in close, pulls Bucky towards him by his shirt and cradles his cheek. He shushes him and smiles.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me, too, Buck.”

“Fuck off,” he scoffs, pushing Steve off of him, shutting himself down immediately. “You had Carter. I just wanted to know if it was real, okay. I know it didn’t mean anything to you.”

He can see Steve getting angry but he tries to ignore it, tries to close himself off and hide the emotions that are now welling up inside him, threatening to burst after decades of being kept at bay.

“No, fuck you. You never once—you never said anything. You pushed me toward her.”

The anger comes in one wave, one huge crash, and he snaps, raising his voice when he speaks. “It was obvious who you wanted, Steve. I wasn’t stupid. I’m not stupid.”

“You sure are acting stupid.”

In the split second before Bucky shouts something obscene, Steve launches forward and kisses him and he has to grip the desk behind him to realize what’s happening. He’s been kissed like this before but he didn’t come here for this and he needs to go.

“It meant everything to me,” Steve whispers, pulling away but still holding Bucky’s shirt like it’s an anchor in a stormy sea. “You mean everything to me.”

He needs to go, but he needs to be angry too apparently. “Yeah?” he hisses, trying to shove Steve away again, but he clings to Bucky like he did when they were kids. “Then why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not lying,” Steve says, enunciating the words.

Bucky shakes his head and laughs, challenging Steve. “You said it happened once. You’re lying. The night before the train, you pulled out that compass and it pissed me off so much. Tell me you remember; I know you remember.”

It takes a moment during which they stare each other down. Steve gives in first.

“I remember.”

“Of course you do. I made a stupid comment about her and you got angry. I pushed you and pushed you until you pushed me back. And then I kissed you. You were so angry you kissed me back. Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen, Steve. It happened. It was different from the first time.”

“Yeah, I had to do all the work,” Steve jokes, actually cracking a smile.

“Fuck you,” Bucky mumbles, but there is no more ire in his words. “You loved it.”

“I did, yeah, I did. But we woke up and jumped onto a train and I never saw you again.”

Bucky is made aware of how close they still are when Steve walks away on his own toward the other side of the room and leaves him feeling empty and cold.

“I’m here now,” he calls out, like he’s shouting across a vast cavernous space. It’s a split-second decision like the one he made when he kissed Steve all those years ago; seventeen and drinking whiskey to give him courage and hoping, praying, wishing that Steve wouldn’t sock him in the jaw when he did it. “What are you so afraid of? Are you afraid of who you are? Is that what this is? Because it ain’t the 40’s anymore, pal, and even then, you were never afraid to be you. So, what is it? Fucking talk to me.”

“I’m not scared of who I am, Buck,” he starts, searching the skies for the words. “I’m scared of who we are—together.”

“Who are we, huh?” Bucky joins him in pacing, but he’s more deliberate about it. He walks slowly, taking each step carefully, making his way across the space that divides them. “Just a couple of assholes who never figured their shit out. We’re a train wreck but we always have been. Why does it scare you now?”

“Because—” he stops pacing and Bucky meets him in the middle this time. When they kiss again, they both give in, kissing until they’re breathless, like they’re teenagers scared their parents will come home. Bucky kisses Steve until Steve pulls away and speaks again, quiet and sad. “Because I know what you taste like.” The words break his heart in a way he didn’t know was possible. It sounds like a confession and a curse all at once.

“I thought you were gone and I could forget or lie to myself and pretend I never knew to begin with but I can’t. I know what you taste like, Buck. But what does that mean? You were dead—I thought you were dead and if I let myself remember what we had, it would have killed me. What do we do, huh? Where do we go from here?”

“Who fucking cares?”

Bucky kisses his mouth, his cheek, his jaw and starts down his neck but Steve stops him and asks, “What do you want? What do you want from me? Why did you come here?”

It takes him more time than he intended but he finally gives Steve an answer. He shrugs his shoulders and leans his forehead against Steve’s, closing his eyes. “I needed to—needed to come back and make up a goodbye at least. Pretend that we had one.”

When he opens them, Steve Rogers is looking at him like he’s never seen him before, like he’s something unearthly, something wild and unruly, something strange and beautiful, waiting to be wrecked.

Steve kisses him slowly, soft and sweet, taking his time. He tugs Bucky’s shirt off and drags him to the bed by his belt buckle, licks into his mouth to distract from fact that they’re lying down and Steve is nearly naked and there are a dozen new memories clouding his mind. He can feel a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to him as if it’s beating within his own chest and it terrifies him.

So, he lets Steve undress him, lets Steve bite at his neck and whisper his name over and over again like he did all those years ago. He lets Steve grind against him until his dick is hard and his head is swimming and then he flips him over on the bed and kisses him hard.

He’s looking to distract as well—there are scars along his shoulder that no normal person has ever seen, let alone Steve Rogers. It’s dark and they’re not paying attention to much except what’s happening between their bodies, but he’s still panicking about it, worried and scared and stupid about what Steve must think, what must be going through his mind as his fingers find the seam of skin where flesh meets metal. He doesn’t mention it, but Bucky’s aims to distract him further, just in case.

“How well do you remember the last time?” he asks, and Steve groans.

“Buck—"

He gets on his knees in front of the bed and recalls the sounds Steve made in the tent with Bucky’s mouth around him and the cold, mountain air seeping in. He tugs Steve’s boxer briefs off, eager to hear those sounds again.

Steve is watching him, eyebrows knitted together like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, watching Bucky like he’s about to disappear before his eyes, fade away like it’s a bad dream, like he was never here to begin with.

But Bucky won’t let that happen.

He reaches up with one hand and touches Steve’s side; gentle, calming him. Then with the other hand, he strokes his cock slow and deliberate before licking the head. It’s obscene and ridiculous and he watches Steve’s slow, shaky breaths the whole time. Bucky memorizes the way Steve looks when he wraps his lips around his cock and sucks, tonguing the soft underside and listening to the quiet gasps filling the empty room.

It’s different from the first time, when they were both fumbling around and laughing; different from the second time when they were biting and pushing, Steve fucking him on the hard ground, covering his mouth so the team wouldn’t hear.

Now, Steve is gasping for air, his fingers knotted in Bucky’s hair. Bucky is sliding his mouth up and down his length, a metal palm resting on a beating heart, a nagging thought in the back of his mind that tells him they were doomed from the start.

Now, Steve’s cock is hitting the back of his throat and Bucky is moaning through it, encouraging him to move his hips, to give in.

But Steve stops him, mumbles, “Wait—don’t—just wait,” and pulls him up to the bed. He’s a bit of a mess and Bucky smiles at it, kisses his chest and thinks fleetingly that they should stop. They should, but that’s not what Steve’s getting at.

“Come here,” Steve whispers, kissing him softly, properly, like he’s spent seventy years waiting, longing, hoping, dying for it. Bucky doesn’t feel like it’s been that long; for him it has been a constant, unwavering numbness that he couldn’t identify.

Steve kisses him slow and sweet again, just enough that Bucky sighs against his mouth, melts into him. They could stay like this all night and Bucky wouldn’t mind, but they’ve both been starving for so long and this feels good and right and real; Bucky doesn’t want to stop.

He manages to get out of the rest of his clothes while Steve lazily palms his dick and the two of them inch up the bed. Steve stretches over and opens the bedside table drawer and Bucky actually laughs.

“Fuck off,” Steve mumbles, and Bucky could almost swear he’s blushing. “It’s 2015, get on board, jerk.”

“I’m on board, punk,” he assures him, rolling over flat on his back and bringing Steve with him. Steve settles between his legs and Bucky stops breathing for a second, watching him, anticipating his next move.

Everything happened so fast before, and all these moments of waiting are making him crazy. He breathes heavy and deep, closes his eyes and enjoys it. Steve mouths at his neck and gets his fingers wet with the lube, and then he’s sliding the first one in and Bucky is gasping at the blunt pressure and instant pleasure. Steve gets another finger in him and starts curling them slightly, sliding in and out, finding Bucky’s mouth and asking him if it’s good, if it hurts, if he wants more.

“I want—” he nods, words gasped against Steve’s lips. “I want you, Stevie.”

Steve repositions himself but keeps fucking Bucky with his fingers until he is whimpering, gripping Steve’s arm, dragging metal fingers over his skin and practically begging for it. When he finally stops, he smiles in a way no one else has ever seen, and Bucky’s hesitations all jump out the window.

He spreads his legs a little further, hooks his ankle over Steve’s thigh and lets him press forward, sliding in slow and deep. They both take a moment to appreciate how they fit together before Steve rocks his hips just slightly and Bucky moans out a laugh. He’s tight and Steve’s thick and the combination makes them both unsteady.

“Fuck me,” Bucky whispers, biting Steve’s skin where he can get at it.

Steve more than complies.

He steadies himself on his knees, pushes Bucky into the mattress and thrusts into him until they are both panting, clawing at each other and bruising each other’s mouths with kisses that are too hard and soft all at once.

Steve leans back and thrusts in harder, pulling away and looking down at Bucky, stretched out on the sheets, eyes closed and lips bitten and red. Bucky can feel him watching so he gives him a show. He wraps metal fingers around his own cock and starts to stroke himself slowly. He doesn’t have to imagine that there’s someone else in bed with him right now and it makes him feel happy and full and scared all at once. He doesn’t need to touch himself, either; he’s going to come just from being fucked like this, but he does it so when he opens his eyes and sees Steve’s reaction, he can memorize it for later.

“God,” he hears Steve sigh, and it’s all worth it: the risk, the anger, the confusion, the search for answers. It’s all worth it to hear Steve sound like that again.

He pulls Steve back towards him and kisses him once more for good measure and then he smiles, wide and wild and says, “Don’t stop.”

 

—

 

When he wakes up, the sun is shining through the window and Steve is spread out beside him, naked and bruised. He knows the marks will fade soon, knows the way Steve’s skin heals itself like a miracle, but in this moment, he traces the scratches and bites with his fingertips and wishes it could be like this all the time.

It’s unrealistic and logically, they couldn’t spend every day naked in bed, but it’s a nice fantasy.

He gets out of bed reluctantly and stretches his arms above his head. His mouth is dry and he’s aching so he makes his way to the bathroom with the empty glass from the bedside table.

He fills it with water and drinks it in one huge gulp and when he sees his reflection in the mirror, it falls from his hand and shatters on the tile.

He is covered in blood, arm torn off, that vacant, wild look in his eyes. Bucky backs against the wall to avoid stepping on the broken glass and Steve appears by his side, still half asleep but alert, alarmed, concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asks frantically, turning Bucky to face him.

Bucky stares at the mirror and his bloody form stares back. He closes his eyes but when he opens them, the vision is still there. It’s not a nightmare, not a memory. It’s a ghost, haunting his every move.

He rushes out of the bathroom and quickly gathers his clothes.

“I have to go,” he explains, elaborating on nothing. “I can’t be here,” he says, words and sentences blending together. “Shouldn’t have—I have to go—coming here was a bad—bad idea.”

“Buck,” Steve pleads, standing ridiculously naked in the middle of the room. Bucky gets his pants on, his shirt, his shoes and Steve watches him, helpless, lost.

“I have to go, Steve. You don’t—can’t understand. I’m sorry.”

 

Steve doesn’t come after him, but he’s not thinking clearly so he makes it down four flights of stairs before Jarvis asks, “Would you like access to an elevator? And, perhaps, your many weapons?”

Bucky stops in the middle of the stairs and nods. “Yeah, yeah of course. And actually—” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, looking at the white wall of the staircase. “There’s something else you can do for me.”

 

—

 

His apartment feels emptier now that he’s tasted Steve, and he wonders how he can carry on.

He can’t, he decides, but he’s already paid rent for the next three months and although it’s Hydra’s money he would be wasting, he doesn’t want to waste it, so he sticks around and stalks Steve from afar. He tries not to think of it as stalking, just keeping tabs, but he knows it’s a pathetic excuse.

He was a spy, after all, in some ways.

So, he watches from rooftops and jogs past the Starbucks on 57th street every day when Steve and Natasha have caramel frapps and speculate about whether Tony will propose to Pepper soon. He sends Sam information on the whereabouts of known Hydra agents and texts him vaguely threatening comments like ‘blue doesn’t suit you’ and ‘that hot dog vendor is the worst’, laughing every time Sam tells him to delete his number.

He spends two months smiling at Steve’s shadow from afar and not letting himself think of how incredibly creepy it is.

He finally stops when Clint catches him in the cereal aisle of the grocery store across his apartment building. Bucky has a clear view of Steve’s back cheering about the hockey game and hasn’t moved from the cereal aisle in ten minutes because he’s entranced by the way his muscles move, amazed by the fact that he can laugh at commercials and drink shitty beer. Clint more or less sneaks up on him and he doesn’t even notice until he suggests Bucky try Lucky Charms and then leaves with a box of ice cream sandwiches.

 

Bucky wonders how many of Steve’s friends know he’s been watching. He wonders if Steve knows too and realizes pathetically that he probably encouraged it. He wonders how many times Steve put a too-small shirt on or paced across Clint’s window or lingered in Starbucks just because.

Bucky realizes he’s been flirting, too, just poorly.

It’s counterproductive and yet, he’s not sure what else he should do.

He’s not _right_. He’s not okay.

He is in no way ready to drag Steve along while he deals with his ghosts, and they aren’t going away, either. His nightmares are worse than ever and every reflection he passes shows him bloody and torn to pieces. He remembers Howard Stark and the woman in the car, the way her tiny, fragile neck felt in his hand. He remembers shooting Natalia Romanova from a distance, watching her fall to the ground, being reprimanded because she didn’t die. He remembers killing people on the helicarrier, nameless men and women whose faces shift and twist until he’s looking at himself.

Every mirror in his apartment is broken or covered up; he brushes his teeth and stares at the cracked shards and swears he still sees red.

Bucky Barnes won’t leave him alone.

The Winter Soldier won’t let him rest.

How do you move on when you’re haunted by yourself?

You don’t, he decides. You just watch from afar and take what you can get and live with the knowledge that it isn’t for you, it will never be for you.

 

—

 

It is a Thursday morning and he is reading to the sound of the Food Network. He lazily flips the TV to CNN after the third Diners, Drive Ins and Dives begins, and turns the page on Never Let Me Go but he doesn’t start reading.

“—in the side of the building.” A newscaster shuffles papers around on the desk before continuing from the teleprompter. “It appears there are several combatants, some sort of machine or device that is emitting an electrical pulse, and a man who has yet to be identified. We are being joined by Zain Asher who is on site. Zain, what is happening right now?”

As the correspondent starts speaking, Bucky gets up, cursing under his breath. He is already getting his favorite rifle out and packing it into a neat little bag beside sidearms, knives, a tablet and the Hydra tech he’s been tinkering with. He pauses at the television just as Zain Asher concludes her briefing.

“Jarvis.”

His phone lights up and a voice starts talking. “Mr. Barnes?”

“What’s the situation?”

Jarvis pauses and sounds a bit confused. “My system at the tower appears to be blocked. Mr. Stark’s system is functioning as he is on route to the tower, however I am unable to provide any information on the status of the building, and I may lose connection once he arrives. The pulse is rather strong.”

Bucky looks back at the television where the correspondent is looking up at the sky.

“—now appears that at least two individuals have joined the scene, one of whom looks like Iron Man. The other might be Captain America, however we are unable to get a visual due to the device that is live in the building right now.”

“Well,” he says, picking up his phone. “Let’s see if my new protocols work.”

“New protocols?” Jarvis asks, and then answers his own question. “That is why you asked to access my information database: to infiltrate my system yet again. I was naïve. You manipulated me.”

“Sorry, Jarvis, you were easily manipulated, but if this works then it’ll be worth it.”

 

He practically tears out of the apartment and makes it to the tower in less than five minutes as Jarvis reluctantly navigates the traffic for him. By then, it is obvious that the fight has progressed but he can’t get a good vantage point from where he’s standing with an eager and curious crowd watching in awe.

He heads into the Trump Hotel and takes the elevator up to the 44th floor. From there, it is a short climb to the roof and only a couple of broken doors in his way.

Bucky sets up and looks across the street where Steve is fighting a man in a cape and Stark is blasting his way through what appear to be tiny, evil toasters that are flying around the room.

“Jarvis,” he calls out again, and hears a bored reply from his phone. “Is this a better vantage point? Can you access the system from here?”

“I am able to observe the conflict, yes, but I would need to be closer to access anything. Perhaps if you—”

“Already ahead of you,” he says, going back over to where his rifle is waiting for him.

He starts by loading an M4A1 he’s fitted with a grenade launcher with the devices he’s been working on: one is a microphone and the other is a camera. He watches through the scope as Steve and the caped man square off and Stark is pulled back by evil toasters. Bucky takes his shot and launches the devices through the open space, watches as it embeds into the wall.

From his phone, an image appears and he hears Steve shouting, “What are you sleeping?”

Tony responds, “I’m sorry, do you want to trade opponents?”

Bucky plugs his phone into the tablet and sets it down after starting a program. It loads quickly and he replaces the phone with a small disk. He starts to pick the evil toasters off, deciding that they might do more damage than one guy in a cape. Steve looks like he’s struggling, which is new for him, but Stark is nearly pinned down.

“What the—” he hears Stark say as toasters start to drop off the side of the building, hit midair.

When the disk has loaded, Bucky launches it into the building and smiles. “Have fun, Jarvis. Initiate Protocol #1.”

“Initiating.”

He watches as Stark is freed from the toasters and joins the fight with Steve. The device in the middle of the room that the caped man set up starts to falter as Jarvis reconnects with the building’s systems. Bucky shoots at every little toaster that his eyes can see and then turns his scope toward Steve.

He can see and hear Steve and Stark landing blows but it still seems like an unfair fight for some reason. Bucky realizes just before it happens that the caped man is waiting for the right moment: he raises what appears to be another device, and Bucky shoots him twice in the back.

Whatever suit he’s wearing must prevent some of the damage but Bucky keeps going, landing another two shots before Steve kicks the guy off the edge of the building and the remaining evil robots fly down to meet him.

“Sir.” Jarvis clears his throat and says, “I have reintegrated with the Tower’s system and have disabled the device. It appears Dr. Doom has escaped, however.”

Bucky wants to laugh at the name Dr. Doom but his phone catches his attention as he’s packing up.

Steve is lying in his back, confused as Stark banters back and forth with the newly restored Jarvis.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, staring across at the Trump Hotel. “It was Bucky.”

 

—

 

In his apartment, he plugs the tablet into his computer and uploads the data while he puts his guns away.

“Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Barnes,” the AI says.

“You’re welcome. Can you show me the security feed from January 1st, the one from Steve’s room?”

He waits for the reprimand but it doesn’t come. Jarvis just sighs.

“I must say, I am both impressed and incredibly disappointed, Mr. Barnes.”

“I saw an opportunity and I took it,” he explains, shrugging his shoulders.

“You took advantage of the flaws in my system—”

“I thought you didn’t have any flaws in your system.”

“Then how were you able to infiltrate them, I wonder?”

Bucky shrugs again. “It’s what I do.”

He waits for a response but Jarvis just sighs again and says, “Accessing feed.”

 

—

 

He watches Steve drag him to bed night after night. He relives it in his mind, in his dreams, watches it on the computer. He watches Steve in real-time too, watches him eat pancakes that Bruce burns and play basketball with Thor and spar with Natalia. He watches him bring Tony coffee in one of his many labs and take coffee away from Clint and make popcorn when Maria comes over for movie nights.

Sometimes he listens; to Steve’s laugh and his soft words and his deep breathing when he sleeps.

He realizes none of it is very good for his recovery, if he is even recovering. He still has nightmares, still sees his former self in every mirror he passes. He still regrets going to see Steve, not because of what happened between them but because he wants it to happen again.

He knows it’s a bad idea.

But he watches anyway.

He watches as the team takes off to go on some mission, which he later sees in the news involved a collapsing building. He commends them for a job well done.

He watches as Dr. Doom shows up, one, two, three more times and attempts to use the same EMP device to shut down Jarvis’ systems. Tony took care of that after the first time, however, rewriting the codes that secure the access points Doom would need to get at.

Bucky helps, too. He gets on the computer and initiates Protocol #4 which blasts Doom from the building; Protocol #8 traps him until Thor can get to the penthouse; Protocol #17 emits a loud noise that disrupts the stability of the evil toasters.

Jarvis becomes more helpful and doesn’t reprimand him as much when he intervenes. Steve always knows it’s him, but they never talk about it. They just clean up the mess and Natalia tells Tony he needs to work on truly unbreakable glass, and they order take out and watch bad rom-coms.

Bucky watches from afar and feels like he’s part of something and knows that he’s not.

 

When the time on his rental agreement is over, he packs up the few possessions he has and buys a plane ticket. His landlord is disappointed—Bucky paid in advance, in cash and caused absolutely no problems. The old man says he’s welcome back anytime. It makes him smile as he rides away.

He leaves a message for Steve through Jarvis—a quote that says, “We met at the wrong time. That's what I keep telling myself anyway. Maybe one day years from now, we'll meet in a coffee shop in a far-away city somewhere and we could give it another shot.”

It’s something he heard in a movie, something Steve would smile at.

 

—

 

Bucky goes back to the mountain where it all began and peers off the edge he once ziplined across. Trains don’t pass by anymore so he walks along the tracks and remembers the way Steve’s hand looked, fingers reaching out, brushing his, missing him by inches. He remembers falling, remembers landing, cycles through 70 years of life and barely living, and drinks a bottle of whiskey as he closes his eyes and breathes in the cold mountain air.

He remembers all the bad things that happened to him, wonders about all the good that he could have experienced if he hadn’t fallen. It’s pointless but he imagines finishing the mission, imagines drinking beer with the boys, imagines fighting on. He imagines getting the information on Schmidt’s whereabouts, going with Steve to fight him.

He wonders if they would have crashed into the Arctic together or if Bucky would have had the good sense to give Carter their coordinates and they would have been found.

Steve would have married her and Bucky would have stayed in the army, fighting alongside the Commandos. Or maybe they would have talked about what happened in the tent and things would have been different.

He imagines it all: infinite timelines side by side. Steve marries Peggy and they have children who climb all over him when he’s stateside. He and Steve become something—something more—and they move back to Brooklyn, to their shitty apartment. They crash into the ice and wake up in a new century and navigate the world together. Steve finds him before the Soviets do and he’s missing an arm, he’s a bloody mess, but he’s alive and he’s home and he’s safe. Steve catches him before he falls and he slumps against the train wall and panics about how close he just was to death but they laugh about it later when Peggy’s wrapping her arms around Steve’s shoulders and Bucky’s looking away, finding a spot on the wall to stare at.

Every life is a life he didn’t live, every image is something he has dreamed, something he had wished for.

None of it happened and all of it happened at the same time.

When the bottle is empty, he drops it off the side and moves the fuck on.

 

He has spent so much time trying to remember the details of his life, trying to reconcile what happened to him, living and not letting himself live and clinging to the only thing that grounded him—Steve.

He needs to move on.

He needs to find a new home, one that isn’t attached to another person.

He needs to remember what it was like when he was just himself, no one else clouding his mind.

The problem is, he can’t remember anything without Steve. He can’t remember anything without pain, either, without loss and hurt and fear.

The last time he was alone, he was seven years old in an alleyway.

He tries to recreate that feeling.

Maybe he has to be alone, maybe he has to start over before he can find himself.

 

—

 

Bucky goes to France and imagines he has lived there his whole life. He works at bars and factories, fishing boats, construction sites. He gets paid in crumpled bills and food and beer and is glad that the money from the safe houses is still tucked away in a bank account he can access even though he rarely needs it.

He takes a weekend in Amsterdam and tries to find weed that will affect his senses. He fails, but he enjoys the experience anyway.

He rents a VRBO on the Montmartre and eats pastries all day long. He goes to museums and markets and walks along the Seine. He watches French films and discovers how many languages he can speak.

With every new city he visits, he makes a new friend, listens to their life story and tells them nothing of himself. He is a blank slate, a new book altogether. He is writing new chapters as he travels to new places, and he is leaving no detail out.

In the mornings, he reads by whatever body of water he can find. He reads about history, about love, about war, about life. In the evenings, he drinks wine and sparkling water and makes new memories of hard bread and cheese and dried figs, fresh fruit. He eats peaches and tastes them like he never has before.

It takes a long time to see everything he wants to see. The days pass so quickly he barely notices and suddenly, it’s summer and he’s too hot to wear sweaters and gloves. He risks letting his arm show and decides that even if people stare, chances are he will never see them again. They will have a story to tell about a man with a metal arm and he will have a newfound confidence about a part of him he can’t change or ignore any longer.

He leaves his old memories behind when he crosses borders and picks up new ones along the way.

Sunlight in Greece, crashing waves in Spain, a small town in Moldova where he held a baby for the first time in 82 years. He goes to Italy and marvels at crumbling columns and real ice cream. He passes through Romania and buys plums at a market and relishes the sweet, tart taste of them.

 

He spends his 99th birthday on a plane to Shanghai.

He feels thirty, he feels twenty, he feels seven and free.

He spends a whole year in China and it still isn’t enough to see everything the country has to offer.

He gets lost in the forest of Tianmen Mountain and climbs Moon Hill in Yangshuo. He picks tea from the fields in Meijiawu and finds a new favorite Starbucks along Beishan street.

He doesn’t check in on the Avengers like he used to. Instead, he catches glimpses of them on TV and smiles to himself when the headlines mention Captain America’s heroism, which they always do. He doesn’t watch the feeds like he used to, either, mostly because he leaves his laptop in whatever hotel he’s staying at and gets lost in nature so he forgets about technology.

It makes him happy to know that Steve is doing well, however, and he knows enough about his life to know he’s safe. He knows about the incident in Sokovia, knows about the backlash from the UN, knows that Steve surrounds himself with people who will protect him, who will be there for him, who will love him.

He meets a gorgeous girl one morning who has been teaching in Hangzhou for ten years. They take a walk and talk about home and her hair is blond and her eyes are blue so he thinks of Steve. Steve who has a new team now, Steve who goes on CNN with Stark to oppose the Sokovia accords, Steve who doesn’t say his name anymore though Bucky can still hear it at night, soft and sweet, a whisper in his ear.

 

—

 

He reads in the paper that Peggy Carter has passed and ends his stay in Chengdu to attend her funeral from afar. He spent so long hating her, being jealous of her, that it’s only right he apologizes.

When the church is empty and the guests have cleared out, he puts a hand on the casket and says, “I was such an asshole to you.”

“So was I,” Tony Stark says from the doorway, and Bucky considers running.

Stark walks closer, stands right beside him with Peggy in front of them, and speaks casually as though they’ve been friends all their lives. “I thought—at one point, a low point—I thought she was having an affair with my dad. I was wrong, but I was a huge dick. I don’t think I ever properly apologized. This is—” he motions at Bucky, clean shaven with cropped hair, wearing a suit. “This is a much better look for you.”

“Look I—”

“You killed my mother.” Stark looks like he’s about to cry or punch Bucky in the face but can’t decide which would be the better course of action. He would deserve both, truthfully, but he can’t handle either. “They made you kill my mother. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Bucky is at a loss for words but before he can even attempt to speak, Stark smiles at him and asks, “You haven’t been watching the feeds lately. I’ve noticed. When Jarvis asked if you could have access to our info database, I said yes, but I’m baffled—the protocols you wrote are incredibly effective and kind of intrusive. Your messaging system? How did you do it? How did you integrate all of that without setting foot in the tower, because I know you didn’t go back after New Year’s?” He pauses and Bucky thinks he may be able to answer but then Stark starts to speak again. “I reprogrammed every single line of code myself to give you access but you managed to—you changed it. He answers to you, obeys your commands. You have control over our security feeds. Not only did you send a very clear and romantic message to my roommate but you somehow pulled one over on my AI. It’s impressive but I’m kind of pissed.”

He waits a moment in case Stark starts rambling again and then answers. “When Doom attacked the tower,” he explains. “I helped Jarvis get back online but I also—I programmed my own login into the backup mainframe. You didn’t reprogram the backup and even if you had, you wouldn’t have recognized the addition. I made it with your authorization codes. They were pretty easy to get; you should check in on that.”

“You—you programmed—” Realization hits him and he scoffs, nodding his head. He looks at Bucky like he’s a puzzle, one that he’ll never solve. “What do the other protocols do?”

Bucky shrugs again, thinking this isn’t the place or time to be talking about it. Thankfully, Tony answers for him.

“Never mind, you know, I got a thing to go to. There’s hors d'oeuvres. This has been—this has been enlightening.”

Stark leaves him to his thoughts and Bucky tries to understand what just happened between them. The Avengers are aware of him, aware that he’s around, alive, somewhat well. Steve is aware of him.

The thought makes him happy and sad all at once.

But he hasn’t found what he’s looking for yet, and he doesn’t intend to stop looking.

He apologizes to Peggy once more and leaves the church the way he came in.

 

—

 

He finally settles on going to Scotland and buys a cottage overlooking the sea and surrounded by woods that locals tell him to avoid at night. He buys notebooks in bulk and writes his memories down, one by one.

He fills the pages easily. A hundred years of memory pouring out of him. He writes everything he can remember.

His mother’s voice when she sang to him at night; the way the sand in Montauk felt between his toes when he was six years old and still an only child; the first sunset he saw that made him realize how beautiful the world was. The first book he read, movie he watched.

He fills pages and pages about the first person he loved, the only person he ever loved, the person he will always love, and the brief moments of happiness they captured together. He writes about losing Steve—to war, to Peggy, to time, finally to his own fear. He wonders if he will ever be brave enough to try again and if there will be something to go back to if he does. He writes, “Maybe.” “Someday.”

Bucky writes about the mundane things he remembers: what oranges tasted like, what baked bread smelled like, learning to braid his sisters’ hair. He writes about the big things too: the first time he had sex, the feeling of a bullet piercing skin, nightmares and cold and what it felt like to be starving.

When he writes, he starts from the beginning, he starts from the middle, he starts from the end. He is sixteen on one page and six on another. He is 99 and 30 and frozen in time. He is young and old and alone and lonely. He is surrounded by his family at dinner, huddled in a foxhole with his brothers, under blankets with Steve. He is in a cell in Siberia, a bank vault in DC, a lab he feels like he never left.

He writes and writes and pours himself out on paper and moves, inch by inch, forward in time.

 

—

 

The small cottage becomes a hiding place that he never wants to leave.

He drinks black coffee and learns to bake bread. He still insists on having spaghetti and meatballs at least once a week.

He starts to paint: the sea, the moss-covered hills, the red sky at dawn. He attempts to paint Steve but he can’t find the right shade of blue for his eyes and gives up before he starts. He was never an artist in that way.

He watches YouTube and teaches himself what he doesn’t already know. He does origami and fills the cottage with paper cranes hung from the ceiling. He knits scarves and hats when winter comes to the coast.

He lets in a stray cat one night when the wind is howling. He names her Moon for her grey fur. He is lonely but not alone anymore. She sleeps curled around his body at night and sits at his feet when he writes and follows him to the garden to paw at the dirt and eat the plum tomatoes.

He listens to the waves crashing against rocks and dreams of flying instead of falling. His past self doesn’t visit anymore, instead he sees only himself, the way he was intended to be—peaceful, calm, happy.

He listens to the locals and avoids fairy roads but leaves sweet milk and honey out at night and watches the cat purr quietly at the trees. He wonders if the fairies sent her to watch over him and then writes about the fantasies he invents to keep himself busy.

He reads and writes and sleeps. He takes long walks to the village and sells his vegetables at the market for pennies and goes back to the cottage happy, fulfilled.

He rests.

He recovers.

 

—

 

It is a Tuesday when he goes back to Hell’s Kitchen and his landlord tells him the apartment was recently vacated and it’s his if he wants it back.

He does.

He buys new clothes and new furniture and goes to used bookstores to cover the shelves in color and ink. Moon comes with him and hisses at the stark white walls and the lack of a forest so he paints the place green and buys too many plants and she settles in between the unruly hawthorn bush and the purple hydrangeas and is content.

Bucky gets a job in a bar where everyone has tattoos and piercings and he only gets asked about his metal arm once in a while.

The Winter Soldier is a ghost again and the Avengers have diverted Earth’s latest catastrophe and no one is talking about Shield or Hydra or worrying about secret assassins anymore, at least not around him.

 

It’s been four years since Washington and over three years since he’s seen Steve up close and everything has changed.

 

He’s still Aaron Sanders on paper and James Barnes in his head. He introduces himself as Bucky and tells people that his mother was a history nut.

He makes friends—coworkers that invite him out, the guy from across the hall who keeps him up to date on apartment drama, the barista from before who recognizes him when he walks into her bookstore one afternoon.

He sleeps regularly and dreams of vine compilations. He exercises and paints and shaves away his five o’clock shadow every day.

He watches movies on the couch with Moon and takes walks in Central Park and purposely avoids Columbus Circle if he can help it. He doesn’t check in on the Avengers because for the most part, they are enjoying the peace and quiet like the rest of the planet and he doesn’t need to, if he’s being honest.

It’s been close to three years since he’s spoken to Jarvis, since he’s looked at security feeds or helped them out in any way.

One day, he deletes the program and cleans his computer out. No one tries to stop him and he watches the program remove itself, watches the files he had saved emptying into the trash. He doesn’t regret it; his days of stalking Steve from afar are over.

 

There is a reason he came back, however, and things he needs to do.

One thing he needs to do.

 

It is 8:55am on a Wednesday when Bucky walks into Starbucks and orders a black coffee and a venti caramel frapp, no whip, Cali style with an extra expresso shot.

He sits down and waits and by the time he’s rehearsed what he wants to say six times, Steve walks in and takes his sunglasses off.

“Your friend already ordered for you,” he hears the barista say, and when Steve turns to look, he is visibly floored.

Steve has grown out his beard and his hair is longer than Bucky’s ever seen it; Bucky has stayed clean shaven and, though his curls are coming in, it’s the best haircut he’s had in nearly a century. He’s wearing a red Henley and blue jeans. Across the city, a grey cat meowed at him happily when he modeled this outfit for her.

Steve sits down and Bucky takes in his appearance, his demeanor. There are wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and he looks tired. He finally looks 34 and 101 and Bucky can’t stop staring at him.

He breaks the silence and says, “Hi, I’m Bucky. I thought, maybe we could finally talk about a few things.”

Steve takes the wrapper off his straw and puts it through the top. He takes a sip, probably realizes he shouldn’t tweet out his favorite Starbucks drink, and then he sets it down, his eyes fixed on Bucky.

Slowly, he smiles.


End file.
